Bingo Progress

It's time for another resolution check in! Here is my progress so far:

Surprisingly I am one away from a bingo and I am planning on planting "everything" this fall, specifically the first weekend of October, when we have more plants to plant and the rainy season has hopefully started. It is however incredibly unlikely that I will get a blackout as I'll have to do one project a week for the rest of the year plus an extra. It is possible though and I'd feel very proud of myself if I actually did it so I better get to work!

My main holdups are my disinterest in knitting lately and the slight inconvenience of accessing the sewing machine currently. I did start knitting the socks again and hope to finish the first one today so that's progress. You'll find out Thursday if I did it!

Astoria

Last week I was on vacation and spent some time in Astoria, Oregon. Before going on this trip, I had planned on taking photos to share here, but I am still horrible at remembering to take photos and ended up taking photos of only five things. Here are the three that I liked.

Cherry Blossoms

It’s Sakura season and instead of heading down to the riverfront to check out those trees, I drove east to see some other trees. This park had their flowering cherry trees lit up at night so we headed over just after sunset and snapped a few photos.

Rainbow Photo Walk

Over the weekend, I went on a little garden walk that turned into an impromptu rainbow photo walk. While walking, we looked for each color of the rainbow, starting with red. My niece was the photo director, pointing out what colorful thing I needed to photograph. She even took over the camera to take the "Green" photo. Here is the rainbow we found:

red. orange. yellow. green. blue. purple.

Bingo Progress

Two months of the year are (mostly) gone so I’m doing a resolution check in! In hopes of getting a black out on my bingo card, I need to regularly look at what projects remain. (I had already forgot I wanted to make a photo calendar.) Here is my progress:

I’ve completed three tasks on my crafty bingo card. That’s 12.5% and we are done with only 15% of the year. The socks are still in progress which has had me feeling discouraged (knitting isn’t interesting me right now), but I am planning on marking another project from the card tonight so I’m doing alright. What project should I start next?

A Pony!

Lunar New Year starts next week! 2026 is the year of the horse so I dug up a very old photo of this Shetland pony I took when visiting Scotland. It's so cute and I really want to take a vacation now. I've got nearly a week to finish shedding my skin (2025 was the year of the snake) so I can start this new year off right. My metaphorical skin shedding is cleaning out my closet which I've slowly been working on since January.

And if you didn't know, I've made printable masks of each of the zodiac animals that you can decorate and wear. They are a quick and silly craft project. All 12 of the animal masks in my Lunar New Years series are linked below. You can wear a horse, your zodiac animal, or your favorite of bunch! Enjoy!

Rabbit mask, Dragon mask, Snake mask,

Horse mask, Goat mask, Monkey mask,

Rooster mask, Dog masks, Pig mask, 

Rat mask, Ox mask, Tiger mask

Asters

I was taking photos the other day of the interesting flowers in the yard. Some are still blooming, it certainly doesn't seem like winter here. All of them happen to be in the Asteraceae family.

goldenrod. new beach daisy. beach daisy. false dandelion. coyote brush.

2026

Happy New Year!!!

Since it’s the first post of the year, I’m sharing my crafting intentions! They are a bit different this year, bingo card style instead of a list. Last year (and again this year because they are fun) I made monthly bingo cards of things to do that encourage exploring and trying new things. For these craft resolutions, I’ve got a single bingo card filled with different craft projects in five different categories. Some of these projects have been on my list of crafting intentions for years, some are new because I’ve recently purchased the supplies, and others are crafts I’ve never tried before or want to improve. A blackout is highly unlikely, but maybe I’ll surprise myself with my motivation.

The categories are:
Yarn
• Spiral Tube Socks - I am curious about this pattern.
• Moomin Pattern - I got a Moomin knitting book as a present and should knit something from it!
• Leopard Hat - My longest knitting WIP.
• Scarf for Ruby - My niece wants a new scarf. 
• New Shawl - I bought some bright pink mohair!

Sewing
• Denim Quilt - Yeah, yeah, it’s still not done… 2026 might be the year!
• Catnip Toys - I can always have more of these since the get ripped open often. 
• Culottes - I want to make a copy of some of my pants.
• Chore Jacket - I wanted to make a cape with this fabric originally, but a chore jacket is more my style.
• Ikea Fabric - I bought fabric from Ikea.

Photos
• Photo Calendar - I want to take enough photos this year that I could make a decent calendar.
• Macro Photography - A style of photography I want to get better at.
• Free Space - Every bingo card needs a free space!
• Timelapse Photo - Something new to try.
• Frame a Photo - Get at least one printed and frame it!

Gardening
• More Raised Beds - I think I need more growing space.
• Floral Bouquets - Bouquets make me happy and I’ll be growing lots of flowers.
• Plant Everything - My collection of plants still in their nursery containers will be planted!
• Snail Seed Starting - I haven’t tried it yet, but I think I’ll like this method.
• Actual Gardening Plan - I’m not going to wing it this year.

Other
• Another Floating Shelf - This has been on my list for years!
• Kinusaiga - A new craft to try.
• Laser Cutter Project - I have a laser cutter and need to practice.
• Melty Bead Project - So I use some of my supplies.
• Christmas Slug- For my Christmas light display next winter.

Each column is a different craft category and the placement is kind of random within columns. Now that the bingo card is made, I'm trying to figure out which line will be my likely first bingo. A diagonal maybe? Which is your guess?

More Finland Photos

These are some of the non-aurora photos from my trip to Finland. Mostly scenery, but also the two lead dogs that pulled a cart that I rode and a reindeer that I walked who liked to stop for snacks. Plus the snow from the day before we left!

The Aurora

I spent the last two weeks in Finland and was lucky there were clear skies a few of the nights while in the Arctic Circle that I could see the Aurora. I could also see many more stars than I normally do since there was very little light pollution! Here are a few of my photos of the northern lights. I took many more, but most were quite blurry because of the long exposure time and I didn’t use a tripod. 

2024

Happy New Year!

It’s the first post of the year so I’m sharing my crafting intentions for the year ahead and also recapping my previous year’s resolutions. First, my 2023 recap: I got like 70%! (If I’m fairly lenient on what qualifies as complete and round up. These are my goals and my blog so I did pretty great!) 

Gardening is the category I did most poorly in, completing only one of my three goals (the row cover). Using my oil pastels and sharing about it gets a solid A grade. I completed 3/4 of my in-progress projects! (That quilt!!! Is 2024 the year?) And I’m saying I fixed the unreliable rss/email subscriptions because I thought I had twice and the issue is mostly out of my control.

Now on the the 2024 goals! Are some of them repeats of years past? Obviously!

My 2024 Crafty Intentions are:

In and For the Garden

• Pumpkins!!!
• Cut flowers
• Build three raised beds

Knitting

• A brioche knitting project
• Finish the leopard hat
• Knit more little men

Other Crafts

• More oil pastel drawings
• Mending clothes
• Floral bouquets
• Monthly photo challenges
• January - negative space
• February - portraits
• March - reflections
• April - frames
• May - leading lines
• June - macro
• July - shadows
• August - texture
• September - patterns
• October - silhouettes
• November - color
• December - bokeh

December Photos Week 4

This last week was filled with all the Christmas things; cookie decorating, light admiring, and obviously presents. It was a nice way to end the year and I took lots of photos! My niece helped add the finishing touches to my masterpiece of sweater cookie, I made another Santa ice cream cake, and found inspiration for next year's over the top Christmas light display!

December Photos Week 3

I'm doing a tiny bit better than last week with my photo taking, but still horrible. The highlight of the week was going to The Nutcracker! I think it was the only live performance of the ballet that I've been to and it was great! Had a PNW twist, instead of a rat king, it was a beaver, and the nutcracker was a fur trapper. I am actually really impressed with the quality of the show since it was community theater. Here are the three photos I took this week, none of them are ballet related!

December Photos Week 2

Are we even surprised? Last week I had my first few cute little digital scrapbook pages printed and I was doing at least okay with this scrapbooking thing. This week I have this single photo of one of the two banana splits I ate and nothing else to share. It turns out, no matter how many times I try or how much prep work I do, scrapbooking just is not my thing. I'd rather be watching cheesy Hallmark holiday romances (I watched several this week). So no more scrapbook making for me. I still plan sharing photos through the month, if I remember to take any!

December Photos Week 1

Instead of just sharing photos this month, I'm making a December Daily scrapbook! I have the first few days printed, now I need to locate the little photo albums that I'm sure I have and keep up with the photo taking and journaling! Wish me luck!

Holiday Lights

The Christmas season is officially underway! I've already visited two places to look at their holiday lights and am ready for more festivities! This year, as usual, I'll be sharing photos each week of December and I'm starting a week early so you can enjoy some of these lights too!